


Looking

by skatzaa



Series: Gabriel [1]
Category: The Scorpio Races - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gabe Connolly POV, Gen, The Black Eyed Girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-24
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-24 11:59:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8371504
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skatzaa/pseuds/skatzaa
Summary: After Gabe tells Puck and Finn he's leaving, he finds Tommy and Beech at the pub.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Something I scribbled down while on the bus, because apparently I can't get thirty pages into the reread without wanting to write something.
> 
> Enjoy!

GABE

“Kate is riding in the races,” I say as I sit down in the farthest booth of the Black Eyed Girl. I escaped the house as soon as I could, but it wasn’t fast enough to miss Puck’s sobs or the ghastly paleness of Finn’s face, and so I’m breathlessly thankful to see the lads already at our usual table. Next to me, Beech makes a disbelieving sound that I can only distinguish from all of his other grunts because I’ve spent a lifetime listening to them. 

Across from us, Tommy just looks at me. I can feel his gaze, hot on my face, but I don’t look back at him, because Beech is here too and has also had a lifetime of interpreting us. 

And, though I don’t want to admit it, I can’t look at Tommy without also thinking of Peg Gratton or the way I’ve potentially ruined all of our lives, if we don’t get away from Thisby soon. 

Beech, for all that he hates talking, hates silence more, so he asks, “why’s she doing that?” 

“I don’t know. It’s not like our parents followed the races.” I will never understand my sister, and Beech, an only child, has less experience with sisters than I do, so he accepts that answer. 

Unlike either of us, Tommy has more siblings than I can count, somedays, and he scoffs. 

“It’s because we’re leaving,” he says, and it rings terrifyingly true. “Your sister may be a spitfire, but only the desperate will ride in the races on a _capall_ they didn’t catch themselves.” 

Someone places a pint down on the table in front of me and I hold it tightly with both hands, but I don’t take a sip. 

I can still remember when we were nineteen ourselves, that night Tommy showed up at my house, covered in blood and sand and bruises and grinning like one of the creatures carved into St. Columba’s corners. Tommy has ridden in the races thrice and survived thrice, but every fall I am reminded of his potential fate whenever he shows up at my door, pained and exhilarated. 

This is the path Puck has set herself on, and now I will have to watch her weather the _capaill_ and the sea and her fellow riders. Or, I’ll watch my little sister, the one who tried so hard to be my best friend for so long, die on the sands. 

“I told her I would stay.” 

Beech grunts again, and the noise is somehow both disappointed and resigned. 

Across from us, Tommy is still looking at me. 

“Well,” he says, after a long moment of the pub’s general chatter washing over us, “if we’re staying, I may as well race once more, before I give Aoife back.” 

Back to the sea, is what he means. In less than a month, I will have to watch another boy perform a ceremony that was Tommy’s right, and I will teeter between blaming him, for racing when he didn’t have to, and myself, for making him stay. 

I don’t know that now, though, so I don’t fight him, just like I didn’t fight Puck. Instead, I hold my full pint glass with both hands and keep my gaze down, because I’m afraid that if I look at him, the whole pub will be able to read the fear on my face. And if they can see that, they will understand the rest of it as well. 

Thisby has already taken my parents from me, but I would rather live through that October again than the one to come. I don’t think I can bear the weight of the knowledge that every day, Thisby will try to keep what I plan to steal for myself, because this island cares only for itself.

**Author's Note:**

> Gabe, why are you like this. (whispers) You could have had it all.
> 
> Thanks for reading, and a happy festival month to you all! Comments and kudos are always appreciated, but, of course, not required.
> 
> Read On,  
> Skats


End file.
